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Off Topic Thread | 147 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
no link to "Read More"
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:22 AM EDT
only a link to "Post a Comment"

[ Reply to This | # ]

De minimis
Authored by: maroberts on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:23 AM EDT
Didn't the "de minimis" issue relate to the test files that were
included accidentally? if so, Oracle are being a bit desparate here...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections Threat
Authored by: DannyB on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:37 AM EDT
Please post corrections hear.

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic Thread
Authored by: DannyB on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:38 AM EDT
Please post off topic messages here. Please include clickable links.

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Newspicks Thread
Authored by: DannyB on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:39 AM EDT
Newspicks here. Please include clickable links.

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes documents here
Authored by: DannyB on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:41 AM EDT
Please post Comes documents here.

---
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Feist v. Rural
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 11:45 AM EDT
I've always wondered why Oracle did create an opposing analogy to the whole
Harry Potter thing using a Phone Book or Recipe analogy.

The Supreme Court decided phone book white pages could not be copyrighted in
Feist v. Rural

Wikipedia describes it this way

"The court ruled that Rural's directory was nothing more than an alphabetic
list of all subscribers to its service, which it was required to compile under
law, and that no creative expression was involved. The fact that Rural spent
considerable time and money collecting the data was irrelevant to copyright law,
and Rural's copyright claim was dismissed."

Further the Copyright office has long held that recipes are not copyrightable
explaining:

"Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of
ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as
those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may,
however, extend to substantial literary expression—a description, explanation,
or illustration, for example—that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a
combination of recipes, as in a cookbook."


The 7th circuit wrote in Publications Intl. v. Meredith, 88 F.3d 473 (7th Cir.
1996) dealt with alleged infringement of a recipe book.:

“The identification of ingredients necessary for the preparation of each dish is
a statement of facts. There is no expressive element in each listing; in other
words, the author who wrote down the ingredients for “Curried Turkey and Peanut
Salad” was not giving literary expression to his individual creative labors.
Instead, he was writing down an idea, namely, the ingredients necessary to the
preparation of a particular dish. “[N]o author may copyright facts or ideas. The
copyright is limited to those aspects of the work–termed ‘expression’–that
display the stamp of the author’s originality.” Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at
547, 105 S.Ct. at 2223. We do not view the functional listing of ingredients as
original within the meaning of the Copyright Act."

A recipe can certainly be creativity or original and I have long puzzled about
that and another long standing ruling that typefaces cannot be copyrighted.

The Copyright Office Compendium II their internal "Bible" states:

202.02(j) Familiar symbols, typeface, and design of printed material.

Familiar symbols or designs, and mere variations of typographic ornamentation,
lettering, or coloring, are not copyrightable. See 37 C.F.R. 202.1(a). Typeface
is not copyrightable, nor is the design, format, or layout of books and other
printed material.

Just wondering out loud.

---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]

Sur-reply?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 12:34 PM EDT
Isn't this exactly the kind of situation that a sur-reply is for - when new
issues are introduced in the reply?

I wonder if Google will file one.

MSS2

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Cross Appeal - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 04:23 PM EDT
"Hurt the Market"
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 01:03 PM EDT

Speaking as one of those in the market - as both a consumer and producer of software goods - Oracle's behavior is what has "hurt the market".

Given Oracle's perspective as outlined in the case it's my humble opinion that it would be a great risk for me as a software developer to use Oracle's works for the basis of my products.

RAS

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oracle Responds to Google's Appeal Brief - "There Is No 'De Minimis' Defense" ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 01:05 PM EDT
de minimus is obviously normally considered by the courts, in the sense that
it's the job of the fact-finder to determine the scope of infringement (which
directly affects the damages award).

That's why there is a statutory option.

I'm sure google would be more than happy to give Oracle their $150K and move
on.

[ Reply to This | # ]

"I guess they hope the judges are not technically knowledgeable. "
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 02:08 PM EDT
But that's a reasonable hope. If you get to higher courts, judges get older and
with more experience in law. Computer technology is rather young in comparison,
and if you have a really good resume in law, you likely did have much
opportunity to dabble with programming in your life.

The situation will likely be quite more extreme at the Supreme Court.

Google's best chance is that the higher courts will look at the verdict in
detail and come to the impression that this judge knew what he was talking about
regarding the technical aspects, and that his legal reasoning is at least
compatible with the higher court's practice.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oracle agrees that its declaring code in non-copyrightable
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 03:42 PM EDT
Oracle states that copyright applies to a
set of instructions. Declaring code
contains no instructions but are rather a
set of entry points much like an
alphabetical index (especially of a
dictionary) that is used to find set of
instructions to execute. Google used a
different set of instructions with the
same index.

I am not as lawyer but I am a Master of
Computer Science.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Peat and Repeat - Oracle Resp... "There Is No 'De Minimis' Defense" ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 07:00 PM EDT
Peat an Repeat were sitting on a bench.... Boy legalese is wordy. Wors
than Cobol!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Peat and Repeat - Oracle Resp... "There Is No 'De Minimis' Defense" ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 05 2013 @ 07:01 PM EDT
Peat an Repeat were sitting on a bench.... Boy legalese is wordy. Worse
than Cobol!

[ Reply to This | # ]

"There Is No 'De Minimis' Defense" ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, July 06 2013 @ 05:29 AM EDT
Stupid argument.

If there were no de-minimum defence they wouldn't be able to use the words
"No De minimis" because someone else has surely used them before and
owns the copyright.

[ Reply to This | # ]

API's are fundamentally different
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, July 09 2013 @ 09:51 PM EDT
I can't help but notice after following this case and the sco case that no
lawyer seems to be aware of the fundamental difference between headers
describing api's and other code.

The purpose of libraries in any computer language is to prevent the need to
reinvent the wheel.

In order to use it, you have to link to a header with precise details in it,
otherwise it won't work.

Both of these points have been raised seperately in previous threads, but nobody
seems to have followed through to the logical consequences if these headers are
copyright protectable.

If Microsoft can protect the api for accessing a file in windows, it makes every
program which opens a file on windows a derivative work.

If they choose to enforce this, and require a license from everyone opening a
file, it forces every program to be licensed under terms compatable with that
microsoft license, and places another microsoft tax on the entire windows
software industry.

It also allows them a veto on any program or programmer of company that they did
not like, which to my eyes would have severe monopoly abuse implications much
worse than the current problems with software patents.

If apple then do the same, it would further constrain cross platform code to be
compatible with both the microsoft and apple licensing terms.

All us programmers here know just how difficult it is to figure out which
licenses are compatible, even without the massive amounts of legalees such
companies would inevitably put in to such licenses.

This would require every programmer to become an expert on software licensing
law, so that they could understand which platforms could be developed for, and
what the constraints on the programmer would be, and this would be before they
write a single line of code.

These seem to be massive legal implications, but I don't recall any lawyers here
(or defending against ip maximalists) even considering these consequences.

Xyroth

[ Reply to This | # ]

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